He Makes Me (Queen AU)

Chapter 65

Roger shook his head dismissively and approached the car, pleading, "Look, you...you've gotta help us." His voice was hoarse from yelling, and his icy hands clung to the car window's ledge. "P-P-Please. We...We're dying out here."

The driver leaned forward, the thick scarf she had wrapped around her neck pressing against the steering wheel, and peered around the blonde to his shivering companion, hugging himself for warmth underneath the lamppost. She bit her lip and sank back into her seat, heaving a contemplative sigh and resting her elbow beside Roger's hand. With her head in the palm of her hand, she mumbled, "Fine. Get in."

"Oh my god, thank you," Roger rattled off, diving through the opened window and grabbing the girl's face to plant an appreciative kiss on her cheek. The driver recoiled and wiped the slobber off her face as the blonde rushed back to his lover's side, carefully helping him up off the snowy pavement and ignoring his frustrated pleas to just leave him behind. As soon as they both slipped in and the door closed shut behind Roger, the girl dropped her foot on the gas pedal.

Her headlights barely penetrated the wall of white they plowed through, her chained-up tires kicking up a flurry of snow as they flew down the streets once again at a speed much too fast for these conditions. The girl glanced back at her passengers and, breaking the tension that filled the toasty cabin, asked, "So, where're you two headed?"

Roger parted his lips, but Brian's voice came out, the latter sitting forward and clinging to the back of the passenger side seat as he told her, "Imperial College."

"What?" the blonde snapped with an instantly furrowed brow.

"You know how to get there?" he asked the girl, ignoring the blonde's reaction.

"Yeah, I know how," she replied, returning her attention to the nearly invisible road. "My dad was a professor there...taught astrophysics and music. Not at the same time, of course, but—"

"Brian," Roger whispered harshly, latching onto the guitarist's upper arm—the driver's personal anecdote passing through one ear and right out the other. "What the hell are you talking about? We need to get help, medical help."

"And where do you think we're going to get that?" the curly-haired student bit back. "A hospital? How the hell are we going to explain to them what happened, Roger, or why we're dressed like this?" A tense moment of silence encompassed the small vehicle, the driver stealing quick glances at the two in the back through the rearview mirror. "We can't," Brian answered himself glumly, leaning back into the seat and folding his arms over his chest. He turned his head to look out the window, muttering, "We're better off just going back to my place from the college and forgetting this all ever happened."

The blonde stared at his bandmate, wanting to argue but finding it difficult to do so.

After all, he wasn't wrong.

How would they explain what happened, and who would believe them? Say someone did, what evidence would they find? Would they find John and Neil? Would they be alive? Dead? And what about Tim? Where would he be? Roger doubted he could get far, remembering vividly the gunshot wounds in his shoulder and stomach. But still, by the time someone decided to go out there and investigate, he could've cleaned up, or escaped entirely. He might be in a different city by then; maybe a different country. What would they do then? Would they still go after him? Or would they just file the case and move on, just like they should've done when they had the chance?

Roger slumped back in his seat in defeat, mirroring Brian.

Having overheard their hushed conversation—the radio that produced nothing but static for the last hour turned off and the sound of the wiper blades dragging along the windshield turned to background noise—the driver cleared her throat. "So, uh, Imperial College, you said?"

*****

To tie up his loose ends, Tim revisited the stage where his grandmother still lay on the floor. In one hand was an axe, and the other, a duffel bag. Following Gordon's departure, and before venturing back upstairs to patch up his wounds with some clean gauze and swap out the thin robe for a pair of jeans and a button-down long-sleeve, he stepped outside to grab the axe that had been propped up against the building, right next to the shovel he'd used on poor Freddie. As for the duffel, well, it was Freddie's—left behind in the foyer, unemptied. While Tim had threatened Roger that night if he disobeyed him, he was grateful the blonde didn't do as he was told. It made his search for something to stow the old woman's body away in that much easier, because the brunette was in no condition to hack his grandmother to pieces, yet he knew it had to be done.

So, with aching arms, he swung the axe through the air, lodging it in her joints over and over again with a gruesome squelch until the limbs separated completely from her torso. It was a strenuous task, and by the time all her appendages had been severed—save her neck and head—the brunette had rolled up his sleeves and resigned exhaustedly to the stage. He leaned against it with his exposed elbow digging into the old, wooden floorboards and his heavy head propped up by his adjoining hand.

Don't stop now, the voice he'd managed to drown out in his exertion returned. You've got to get rid of her.

"I know," he growled, his eyes closed and his voice resounding as a harsh whisper. "Just give me a second."

You don't have a second, Tim. You need to do this now. You don't have till tomorrow to get it done. By tomorrow, they'll have already caught you red-handed.

The brunette clenched his jaw and opened his eyes, denying his unseen reflection a response by grabbing the axe he'd set down and trudging back over to Nana. He threw the axe above his head and—with a furious scream emanating from the back of his throat—drove it down into and straight through her neck. Her head instantly rolled over, stopping when her nose made contact with the floor.

Tim nudged the decapitated head aside with his foot—her marbled, emotionless eyes pointed at him—and tossed the axe behind him, falling to his knees and grabbing for the duffel bag nearby. One by one, he stuffed her arms and legs—all cut in half—into it, arranging them like a puzzle so that they all fit and there was still room for her chest and head. He'd always teased Freddie for how frivolous he was in his travel preparations, packing for a week when they were only going away for a weekend. It was a shame he couldn't appreciate it when he was still alive.

Closing the duffel was a challenge with all the severed body parts crammed into the main compartment, almost spilling over, yet at last he was able to pull the zipper fully along its track—nearly toppling over as he did so. With the bag zipped, he sat back on his heels and gasped for air. The atmosphere felt thinner all of a sudden, and the dull ache radiating from the center of his stomach screamed for attention.

Obligingly, Tim unbuttoned his long-sleeve and peeled back the gauzy bandage from his wound. A deep, brownish red splotch stained the dressing, but the bloody hole in his belly now only secreted a much more manageable, slow, thick ooze. He sighed annoyedly and reattached the gauze square to his skin, taking just one more minute to gather his strength before carrying on and picking himself up off the floor.